Libya - What Next?

After an overnight push into Tripoli, the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) is poised to take control of the capital and the country.

But whether this group of former exiles, military officers, tribal leaders, human-rights lawyers, and ordinary Libyan citizens can actually govern the country effectively is another question?

Unlike the situations on Egypt and Tunisia, there has never been a history of democracy or government institutions in Libya and therefore any path to a 'normal democracy' will be all the more difficult - since they will have to start from scratch.

It will be up to Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the NTC, to get the country back on track. He is a former minister of justice under Gaddafi's government but he has little experience in the kind of national politics he will be faced with if Libya is to emerge successfully from this.

International powers have recognised the NTC as the legitimate Government of Libya but it will have to act quickly reconcile the nations differences and begin reconstruction!

Security

The first and most important task, following the overthrow of Gaddaffi will be to restore security. Tens of thousands of people have armed themselves with rifles, handguns, artillery and mechanised vehicles looted from arms depots. Borders are not properly monitored and there is a risk that some militant groups or tribal factions will try to wrest control during this unstable period.

Inflation

Economic stability is also a concern - the price of a bag of flour, which used to cost 5 dinars (US$4.16), is now selling for more than 70 dinars. A five-litre tank of petrol, normally 4 dinars, is now about 60 dinars.

Oil

Libya of course, has oil. Until the recent fighting, it produced 2 per cent of the world's oil and had amassed billions of dollars that were invested around the world. With a population of just two million, Libya could be one of the richest countries in the world. But fighting has reduced exports to just a fraction and much of the country's savings abroad has been frozen by countries trying to put pressure on the Gaddafi regime. International oil companies have sent in technical teams to assess how quickly refineries can be restarted and how badly facilities have been damaged during the fighting.

But the presence of oil (lots of it) doesn't guarantee prosperity for all. There is a pretty good chance that oil money is going to be badly distributed or misspent, that will benefit the few, rather than the many.

The Future

In the coming days, Mr Jalil, the head of the NTC, will for the first time have to deal with a country that was largely unified against a dictator, but could become equally divided over the what happens next and who takes control. The first dispute could be over who deserves the credit for actually ousting Gaddafi - the assault on Tripoli was led by rebels from western Libya - a relatively new group in the six-month uprising and there is no guarantee this group will accept the leadership of the NTC from Benghazi.

Difficult times indeed.

Running a Competition on Facebook - 10 things you really need to know

Have been struggling this week to get to terms with Facebook!

A client of mine wants to use Facebook as a competition mechanic to drive more Fans to their Facebook pages. Sounds simple. It isn't.

There are many ins and outs to running a Facebook competition and a number rules and regulations that need to be observed with the possible penalty of having your site closed down if you don't follow them!

So after spending a day looking into this - here is my breakdown of what’s required in order to run a legitimate Facebook competition…

You can read the full guidelines here but below is summary of the most important points.

• You CANNOT run a competition that allows people to enter JUST by ‘liking’ the page. Or by ‘liking’ a post, status message, link, picture or video.
• However, you CAN ask them to ‘like’ your page BEFORE they enter the competition via a third party application or another website.
• You CANNOT run a competition that allows people to enter JUST by ‘checking in’ to a place.
• You CANNOT run the competition directly on your Facebook page. It has to be via a third party application or another website. You can promote it via your Facebook page wall but the actual competition has to be via an application or another website (the obvious place is your website or blog).
• You CANNOT notify your winners via Facebook at all. They must be emailed with their notification of winning or told via your website for example.
• You MUST add a Facebook disclaimer on your competition application or wherever you are hosting your competition, if the competition is to be promoted on Facebook. The disclaimer is: “This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user's information].”
• You MUST ensure that all entrants to your competition are NOT staff, sponsors or associated with in any way to Facebook.
• You CANNOT ask people to create an account with Facebook itself in order to enter your competition.
• You CAN collect information about your entrants (such as email address, name, location etc) if you are using an application or web form for your competition.
• You CANNOT ask people to upload something for the competition to your Facebook page wall. This HAS to be done via a third party application or your website/blog.

There are other conditions as will see from their official terms, however if you stick to the above rules, you won’t be going too far wrong....

By the way, two of the most popular apps on Facebook for promotions and competitions are Wildfire and EasyPromos.

We hope this brief guide helps you to run your next competition on Facebook! Don’t forget to ‘like’ our new Facebook page while you're there!

Lessons from the Holidays 4U collapse

So, more than 60,000 holidaymakers lost their holidays on Wednesday when Holidays 4 UK collapsed.

At the same time as this single-destinational-budge- tour operator collapses we see that Cox & Kings are spreading their upmarket-multi-destinational-net over Holidaybreak.

The message here rings out loud and clear - that a strong brand and an adherence to quality with sensible revenues and margins will always be better than a brand where price is the only determinate. And spread your portfolio - get your product mix right, in these turbulent times don't rely on one destination that could turn overnight..

(Mmm, isn't that what Thomas Cook were saying..?)

Interestingly, the collapse of Holidays 4 UK, follows only two weeks after they reported a near-tripling of profits and after its managing director, Nuri Mete Faks, claimed that he was "confident of success in 2011 and onwards".

The company's accounts, filed on 20 July, show the company made pre-tax profits of £326,270 in the year to the end of October 2010.

It's unusual for businesses to fail so early in the peak summer season when cash flow is usually at its best. Holidays 4 UK's failure was reportedly triggered by dire trading in May, June and July. .

Holidays 4 UK, which is owned by two Turkish-British families and has been trading from Brighton for 17 years, is now being run by PricewaterhouseCoopers administrators.

"The company has suffered because of the difficulties faced by the travel industry during 2010 and 2011, as a result of the economic downturn," said Ian Oakley-Smith, joint administrator and director at PwC. "The director has determined that the business is no longer able to trade and placed the company into administration. The company will cease operating with immediate effect."

Last year another Turkish budget specialist, Goldtrail, collapsed in July, also appointing administrators from PwC. This failure in fact provided a temporary bonus for Holidays 4 UK.

The company Holidays 4 UK said in its annual report recently: "(Faks) is confident of success in 2011 onwards in view of the failure of the company's two major competitors during the summer of 2010. He considers that the next year will show a consolidation in the market place before sales grow significantly".

The company had a turnover of £35m a year and was licensed to carry 100,000 passengers under the Atol scheme. Most of the Brighton-based company's 18 staff have been made redundant now.

The rescue will cost the CAA about £9.5m, of which about £4.5m will be covered by Atol bonds and other security measures lodged by Holidays 4 UK. The rescue fund, which is already £42m in deficit, will be pushed a further £5m into the red by the latest collapse.

It will put pressure on the CAA to increase its £2.50 levy on all package holiday bookings so as to put the repatriation fund on a better financial footing.